What Is Love?

There are many types of love. The love of a friend, love for a parent, love for a child, love of god, and the love of inanimate objects (food, hobbies, music, etc). For the purposes of this article, however, we will discuss the most often referenced type ... romantic love.

So why is it so difficult to agree on the definition of love? Well, love is an emotion and emotions are not easily defined. There are also other emotions that may confuse the subject as they are similar in their effects to love. So perhaps the best way to answer the question is to look at what things most people would agree are necessary in maintaining a loving relationship.

Often, the first emotion one experiences in the process of falling in love is lust. Lust is a craving of a physical nature for another person. Lust is easily confusable with love due to that craving. You intensely want to be with the person and that's definitely one aspect of love. Lust, for that reason, may account for the belief in "Love at first sight". Couples who do go on to form a permanent loving relationship remember the lust that they felt for each other when they first met and credit that moment as the one where they fell in love. It's unlikely, however, that they would have succeeded in forming that lasting relationship if lust was all they ever felt for each other.

The next step in falling in love is developing attractions for each other that are not strictly physical in nature. Here we're talking about attractions based on your desire for shared commitments, most notably going steady, monogamy, marriage, children, and common interests. When you feel that overwhelming need to see your partner, is it always physically oriented? If so, you haven't moved out of the lust phase. If you can't wait to spend time doing something with your partner that is of mutual interest and totally unrelated to sex, then perhaps you've reached the attraction phase. Even more so, if you envision that person as the one you'll spend your life with ... paying the mortgage ... getting up with the baby in the middle of the night ... cleaning the house ... and so on, you are on your way to a loving relationship!

One important point to mention here is that both partners must feel that way before there's any hope of creating a long-lasting, loving relationship. If only one of the parties has developed those non physical attractions, it's time to slow things down! Common signs are where your partner doesn't care to do anything you are interested in. The only non-physical activities they want to do with you are those they are interested in. Remember, the attraction phase requires common interests. You should, however be aware that this phase may take slightly longer for your partner than it does for you.

The next phase in falling in love is attachment. This is where you put those desires for major commitments in the attraction phase into full operation. Both partners have an overwhelming desire to marry or otherwise commit to each other for life, have children together, buy a home together, and make other decisions that result in their working together as a permanent couple. We've all seen the movies where everyone has "cold feet" over these decisions and a bit of anxiety over such major steps is normal. Beware of the partner who is overtly anxious though. This is the final step in falling in love and if you're partner is more than a little unsure, are they really in love with you? Don't forget, you've both had the attraction phase to think those things through. There should be little or no doubt at this point.

So now you and your partner are definitely in love. How do you keep things that way? Ask a dozen people who divorced after five or ten years of marriage how they felt about their partner on their wedding day. Most all of them will reminisce about how "in love" they were. So what went wrong?

Probably the most common reason for this is that they skipped the attraction phase. Going straight from the lust phase to the attachment phase is a recipe for relationship disaster! You need those common interests and non-lustfull attraction to make a long term relationship work ... period! A large percentage of couples make this mistake.

The second most common reason for "losing love" is not maintaining the things you developed in the attraction phase. Did you stop engaging in common interests? Did you stop "dating"? You know ... that exercise where both parties dress up to impress the other. Where you do something together that's fun for both. Do you do things together with your children? Like a family? If you loved to go dancing together, do you still do that? Do you still make nice comments about the other one's appearance? These are the things that contributed to falling in love ... stopping them can cause that love to fade away.

So in conclusion, when asking, "What is Love?" and more importantly, "Am I In Love?", ask yourself these questions:

1. How much of my feelings for this person are "lust" oriented? How much is about other things?
2. Do I want to share the important parts of my life (marriage, children, mortgages, vacations, etc) with them?
3. Am I confident that they feel the same way about me?

Thank you for visiting our "What Is Love" page!